Posts Tagged 'Delegate Assembly'

Introducing the Working Conditions Challenge!

Published November 13, 2023 UFT 2 Comments
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Our union has a delegate assembly (DA) problem. In the last three years alone, DA resolutions seeking substantive policies to improve the working conditions of our membership have been outnumbered 3:1 by purely symbolic proclamations and political endorsements. In 2021, only a single resolution was passed by the DA that directly dealt with actual working conditions for UFT members.

As chapter delegates at DAs, we are elected and entrusted with the solemn responsibility to first and foremost deliberate and forge collective member-driven decisions to improve the conditions in our schools. Our school members are clamoring for bottom-up action, not simply reports and position statements from 52 Broadway. But, in increasingly scripted meetings, we see less and less debate about what the UFT’s policies/strategies should be on improving working conditions or benefits.  We are now seeing delegate assembly meetings where 0-1 resolutions are brought to the floor for a final vote.  

Instead, we hear reports and dicta on what Michael Mulgrew says union policy will be – like accepting curriculum mandates instead of fighting them, acquiescing to the DC37’s sub-inflation wage increases, or working with the City to reduce our healthcare benefits by 10%. When educators are finally given a chance to debate, we’re rarely given the opportunity to discuss union matters. Instead, at best, we hear debate-less resolutions on which we vote unanimously that ‘apple pie tastes great.’ And at worst, we debate external geopolitical events that only divide our membership and make it harder for us to work together to identify/solve UFT issues. 

It’s time to beat the script and begin representing the heart and soul of our union — our members. At a recent Executive Board meeting, Michael Mulgrew publicly proclaimed that he ‘only does the will of the DA,’ that resolutions passed there become official policy. So instead of tossing him pieces of apple pie, or geopolitical poison pills, we should do right by the educators who elected us and put forward some UFT policies for our union leadership to implement. 

The Challenge and Call to Action

That’s why we are posing the ‘working conditions challenge.’

From December to June of this 2023-24 school year, we encourage all chapter leaders and delegates, with input from their school staff colleagues and communities, to bring creative solutions to the everyday challenges we are facing in our classrooms and schools. Your chapters know best what those resolutions should look like, but if you want some ideas, here are some below. (And if you have others please leave them in the comments!). 

We need creative, member-driven resolutions and policy changes to deal with:

  • Abusive school administrators
  • Lack of say in the principal hiring process
  • Micromanagement and excessive paperwork
  • Curriculum mandates / implementation
  • Ending austerity school budget cuts, increasing funding and supports 
  • Safety, health and emergency measures and protocols 
  • Specific actions to fix Tier 6 pensions, sooner than later
  • Due process for non-tenured teachers, safeguards against discontinuance
  • Ending the “tenure Olympics” created by Cuomo, Klein, and Bloomberg
  • Living wages for our paraprofessionals 
  • Improving healthcare benefits, not accepting diminished care in exchange for “cost savings” for the City 
  • Extending paid parental and family leave so that it matches the benefits of most New York workers
  • Oversized caseloads for counselors, school psychologists, and other titles
  • Hiring more special education teachers, counselors, nurses, and social workers
  • Reforming ‘fair’ student funding and returning to unit costing
  • Reinstituting seniority transfers
  • Restoring the right to grieve letters in the file
  • Implementing real consequences for administrators who repeatedly violate class size limits with collectively bargained guarantees
  • Reforming the teacher evaluation system.
  • Ensuring safe, equitable and responsive schools 
  • Ending systems that perpetuate reliance on high stakes standardized testing
  • Ending bureaucratic largesse, waste and budget mismanagement 
  • Ending unilateral mayoral control of our schools, with emphasis on community and educator voice and empowerment in our schools’ governance.
  • Enforcement of state law mandates regarding libraries in every school and ELL guidelines
  • Improving our family and community relationships
  • Addressing root causes to our teacher shortage crisis
  • Increased union democracy and participation

The list goes on. What else do you think we need to address together?

Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to the people’s business! 

Thank you for all the work you do, already.  We see you!

Download & Print The Challenge

Note: We are also proposing the “Resolution to Strengthen Democratic Decision-Making at the UFT Delegate Assembly” to ensure the people’s business comes first!

UFT Healthcare Changes, Teachers Choice, and the Conflict in Israel/Gaza – UFT Delegate Assembly Notes, 10-11-2023

Published October 11, 2023 UFT 8 Comments
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Summary/Highlights: At today’s DA, we learned a few things:

  • Our in-service health insurance is likely to change – and not for the better, since it’s meant to be changed to get cost savings (for the City/UFT, not us). GHI/CBP, notably, is no longer one of the choices. Choice one is Aetna. Choice two is GHI with United HealthCare (presumably for hospital care, as a replacement to Blue Cross). Mulgrew tried to soften the effect of this point, which he only enumerated in any detail after a question from Daniel Alicea, by pointing to a new law he’s behind to champion reining in hospital costs. However, the chances that we’ll meet ‘all cost savings’ (previously estimated at 10%) just from a single law specific to transparency with hospitals is unlikely. Meanwhile, in terms of a law that would put all of the anxiety that would come with this to rest, the New York Health Act (NYHA), Mulgrew reiterated that he doesn’t support it, even though officially the UFT has endorsed it twice. He also mentioned that part of the reason for this was because it would put our welfare fund at risk, supporting the contention believed by many in opposition that it’s really control and patronage jobs that are keeping Mulgrew from pursuing the NYHA – not money, as he claims despite tons of evidence that he’s wrong.
  • Teacher’s Choice is back, but with reduced allotments for teachers despite record inflation. On the other hand, paraprofessionals are getting their own version of teachers choice for the first time. That’s good news, though it would be better news if the City funded it without reducing the amount for teachers.
  • There are lots of issues with the new curriculum – missing materials, lack of training, etc. A delegate called asking why we didn’t fight it. Mulgrew reiterated that he supported the move because it came with training, something I am critical of in part because I think the support has to do with patronage jobs at the teacher center. The teacher noted that her school, previously successful, was in big trouble now because of rollout issues, and wondered why there wasn’t a carveout. There apparently is a carveout process, though it’s functionally not being used, and Mulgrew expressed only mild interest in pursuing why. This is affecting elementary schools the most right now, but middle and high schools are at risk as well, something we’ve already seen with the Algebra curriculum. Cookie cutter curriculum is what we get when UFT leadership accepts it without a fight.
  • MOSL came up in the question period. A school that used a growth model for the default option, and had always been rated effective, found every teacher now has a developing MOSL. Rather than critique the absurdities of this process, with teachers being rated as inferior based on test scores for students they don’t even teach, UFT leadership defended the system, talking more about how to make sure to ‘choose’ better in the yearly gamble we all make to figure out our MOSLs. This sounds like gambling to me – not good teacher evaluation.
  • Only one resolution came up today – about the conflict in Israel and Palestine. It was a Unity resolution, apparently coming from Rich Mantell. This resolution caused a hugely divisive debate, with sides very split, even across caucuses. In the end, it passed, but narrowly, and with many members visibly upset. No other resolutions were able to come to the floor.

Informal minutes follow.

Mulgrew: Welcome to first DA of the school year. A lot of stuff to do today.

There was a big press conference here today. In 2011 when there was a really algorithm and started messing with children and making a design about everyone’s life. Does anyone want anyone’s information sold? *No.* Looking at other states. Of course social media companies sue with all their money. Last law was 1998 with any safeguards for children. At the same time, I asked Julie Menin to be here, she’s writing the healthcare and social protection act. It says to the hospitals of NYC – we need all your books. Healthcare industry got away with this for decades. They were able to hide a lot. You can imagine pressure menin was put under, but she stayed on top of it.

Julie Menin: We have been working together since 2009, and we built 3 new public schools in this district.

Mulgrew: We were the ones who kept peace in Zuccoti Park.

Menin: Skyrocketing healthcare costs. Medical debt leading debt in NYC. Unconscionable what hospitals are charging. If you go to one hospital you may get one astronomical price in one place and a better price somewhere else. What we can we collectively do to bring down healthcare costs for Nyers? Number one cost is hospital costs.

Mulgrew: Julie not going to let this go. This union has bargained for premium free healthcare for decades, not going to give it up because a couple of hospitals got greedy. They spend a lot of money disparaging people, but we are going to work on this. Thank you to Julie Menin.

President’s Report

Focus for the next couple of months is to implement the contract we received. If you haven’t heard, election day will be remote.

National: The government did not shut down. Only bill that had been passed by Congress gutted things like Medicare, Title 1, and IDEA. That’s the kind of thing we’re dealing with. But government is open until the middle of November. Very constructive nuanced debate on both sides.

Congressman Santos has been charged.

What is going on in Israel right now is horrendous. That stuff affects our government, but also globally important.

Russia wants to interfere with our election.

There was a group—the Freedom Foundation—which attacked the union with millions trying to destabilize us. They didn’t win, so went out west, but they’re back in New York.

Union activists and retirees watch this news. People are getting letters like ‘drop out of the union, give yourself a raise.’ That’s the freedom foundation. They’re attacking both NYSUT and us.

State: Governor and talking about aid on the table. Yes, DOE is in compliance this year – 20% citywide, not necessarily your school. In fact 35%. That’s important for the foundation aid from the governor, which covers the cost of hiring additional teachers and lowering the class sizes.

The Mayor of NYC does not believe in this bill. They keep putting out crazy numbers that make no sense. There is a lookback in year 3. The Mayor has gutted the capital fund. The federal government and state gov have sent more money to NYC than ever before. Only one entity has cut us – the City of NY. There’s no financial reason to do that. We’ll be going to Albany. Some kind of rule has to be put in that the Mayor of NY can no longer supplant what’s put in by the state. We gotta go fight to make sure it stops.

The other thing for Albany legislative session is ramping up fix tier 6. School funding and Tier 6 everyone likes – very much tied together. Working with our state union for past 9 months. All about timing. We want to hit strategically at the right time. Legislative session starts January 2nd. State of the state resolution. That’s at the state level.

We’ve had the health act – it’s not adding up. We’re not gonna gut our own benefits. I’m not putting our welfare fund at risk. Not putting our actual salaries at risk (because puts education funding at risk). I know we supported the resolution, but we didn’t have numbers and have them now. We have analysts who dig this stuff apart.

City: Contract – no more than 3 in a row. Elementary CLs who filled out survey, think we got about 80% there. Still fixing things out there. Our position now with the Department of Ed is we have to reprogram for Feb 1st. CLs have keep talking to principals – principal can’t just say they tried and couldn’t, they have to prove they couldn’t possibly program the school at  4 in a row.

Bussing – more work to do. We meant that yes, kids must be on bus by end of the school day. More work to do on that. Elementary teachers fought really hard for this. Moving.

Committees – where the next big thing comes. CLs and delegates you like being on committees? *groans.* No! but easiest way to go about making sure things are fixed in buildings. One is the ILT, it’s like PD, SDC. Only one change, still have school based one, must be formed by November 1st. We need district committees ready to go – that’s for aligning all PD and SD to the literacy initiative, particularly in elementary schools. High Schools just switch to what you’re doing. 9th grade, Algebra. That’s on the one committee.

On the literacy piece, the DOE had this crazy tool with tons of checklists. Start with simple – do you have your supplies. *cries of No.* Yes, we will get into the instructional approaches, but we first need to know that you have your materials and supplies. We’ve found that some of you have supplies, but not all of you have everything that you’re supposed to have. If that is your situation, have that conversation quickly with your principal, because the DOE has the materials – they bought them all. Don’t know why principals only get 17 books for 30 kids – no idea. We’ll be doing more on that.

Special education: Fought very hard to get this new committee, about looking at the trends in a school. Not about specific information for a student, it’s about trends in a school. Training involved with this. All of you will probably attend this in a virtual manner, some in person. That’s what the actual rules are. This training will be for CLs and principals, virtually together, so no one can tell the other person that’s not what it is. This training is still being constructed, with DOE and UFT, so people can’t say ‘that’s not what legal told me.’ This is them signing off on it. On election day, it’s for the whole school. What you are discussing in your school, CLs can update in CL hub, SPED forms will be there soon. First thing with sped is get all the bad policies out. This will force the DOE to have a discussion about school funding. The minute you say you’re short three paras, principal tells you they don’t have the money – maybe they don’t have it or maybe spent it wrong. Also depends on how a student’s IEP works, why they have a para for instance. This will cause a conversation at the DOE. Paras, ICT are biggest widespread issues. Bilingual services also up there. So do your conversation with the principal.

Flooding: Thank the chancellor, who came out and said we can do better. It’s not just about flooding. Do we have to shut down the whole school system? No. But we can shut down the schools and go virtual. Once you get a couple of inches of rain, these schools will have a problem. Ridiculous stuff with the shelter in place in schools filling up with water and sewage. We had about 300 schools with problems on flood day. Having those conversations with the chancellor.

Negotiated acquisition for in-service healthcare:  In a position where we can save money without reducing any benefits. We want to see when this bill kicks in, because our biggest problem is the hospitals. They’re all over the place. High cost hospital not necessarily even giving you the best service. We’re moving that along, will get aggressive. Think we’ll meet goals.

Substitutes: We have an agreement in our contract. DOE has sent us the vacancy list. Want to get our substitutes to Q status as soon as possible. Official says you get Q status when the union grieves it. They thought that was actually right. One of our biggest challenges last year was fixing substitute issues. They sent us the funded vacancies, not all the vacancies. DOE will tell you they only know which vacancies are funded, not all of them. After we get subs their Q status, we’ll look at school funding on its own.

Remote work titles: have started negotiations with DOE. Will keep you updated as we go along. We did say in the contract ratification, we have to go through this process with the functional titles to get that work done. That’s what we and all other city workers are doing.

Retro and bonuses: We didn’t have as many problems as we thought we were going to have. In SI, the OTs. People looked at stubs and saw they didn’t have it. Turned out they said they were short staffed so didn’t do smallest borough. They did do D75. Why can’t the DOE see that their people don’t get paid when this comes up?

Big legislative session coming up.

Mayoral control sunsets this year. Feds gave us more money, state did too, only mayor did not.

Tier 6 – not going to be a one year fix. It is year 11 of Tier 6. Whole idea is we make sure that nobody gets to it. Years ago Tier 1 helped Tier 4; now Tier 4’s turn to help Tier 6. Not sure where all the crazy politics are gonna go.

God knows it’s going to be one hell of a circus. Gonna be in the middle of our school year. 1100 on the phone, fullest DA room since COVID. Know we have challenges, but together can be successful. People out there want to kill us, won’t stop. Everything we have we fought for and we have to fight to keep it. Saw what happened last year with all the action teams.

Leroy Barr:

Yesterday, national mental health day. Today national coming out day. Want our brothers and sisters to know we’re standing full support with them. Have the Bronx college tour at Lehman. UFT Manhattan college tour on nov 3 at BMCC. Future and Focus here Oct 17. CL training full this weekend. Walks for Breast cancer awareness. Middle school anti-bullying conference. Then we have Xgiving clothing drive. Teacher union day. Charles Cogen award going to Debra Penny.

Servia Silva comes up and thanks the room and everyone who wore pink. Thanks the team, because without a team you can’t do this.

Posting teacher’s choice. Teachers will receive 235 this year, but paras will receive 60 dollars for the first time ever.

Question Period:

Ken Acorn: When I walked in, I saw two empty spaces behind me, because we lost a brother. Would like a moment of silence for George Altomare.

Moment of Silence.

Sandy Wong: What can I do if members didn’t file a reorganization grievance within 4 days and they’re afraid. What can do?

Mulgrew: Let’s have some folks have a conversation with the principal.

James Van Nort: about advance score we got last week. For the first time, my whole school got a Developing on MOSL. We always had effective prior. When we get to the things about student levels, it says no data available, so we don’t even know why. Have always gone with default in the past. I filed an APPR and spoke to Sally Ann, but curious – what can we do about this?

Sally Ann: In your case, you don’t see MOSL data because you have a school-level MOSL. Then, the DOE doesn’t put the data in place because of privacy issues. Reason you have developing this year is because you used a growth model with similar students, so went down to a developing. Would work on making a wider net for next year. Also, if your populations changed in any way, we could review those numbers.  

Mulgrew: We did a zoom for CLs for picking out MOSL. Important thing. Will dig deeper on your school especially those in harms way because of it when combined with MOTP. But want to make sure you’re picking right for next year. We can help you look at the data and see the way to go. When you have changes in school population, though, look out to us, because we do a lot of analysis on that. You need to be reaching out to us. Most of the times the change in population is what causes the problem. Sally can reach out to help make a decision that works better.

Olivia Swisher: Question about part of our new contract that has PD component with CTLE. Timeline for that? We had staff committee meeting and are curious because want it in our school.

Mulgrew: Mary Vacarro: She is in charge of that CTLE.

Name missed: What do you do when you have a shelter in and the police comes and it turns out that we could have seriously been in trouble but no one heard the announcement over the PA because it hasn’t been working, and we’ve been requesting that be addressed.

Mulgrew: If Jeff is here – that requires an emergency fix.

Jordan L: Talking earlier about new law on class sizes – wanted to ask about requirements for DOE. Is it 20 percent of classes across the DOE?

Mulgrew: Yes – of all classes citywide, not school-based.

Daniel Alicea: Can we get a status on the RFP for our city-wide active healthcare?

Mulgrew: Down to 2 bidders – Aetna by itself or GHI with United Healthcare. Because it’s a negotiated acquisition, we get to go back and forth. That will continue for a little bit. Mediator will pick one of them, then team will move in to negotiate what we’re trying to get done. As you’ve heard over and over today, we know we have to go to hospitals. In New York City, hospital costs are up 75 percent.

Bernadette A. : Several schools, principals have been removing all teachers desks. Is this allowed and can it be stopped?

Mulgrew: I was around when we got rid of the desk and put in the rocking chair. Then, remember the rug? They said they had to remove the desks so more room for the kids? First desk to remove is the principal’s.

Marnie Geltman: We were just having an instructional cabinet meeting today – had question why can’t principals get waivers? School in complete chaos because of new curriculum. But we were doing well. New curriculum on such short notice causing lots of problems. Why are we being forced to one size fits all? No one asked us if this was a good idea last year.

Mulgrew: Chancellor did put in a waiver process. From what I understand, not a lot of people received a waiver. We could go check this out, but the whole idea is the chancellor wanted everyone in line with curriculum so in line with teaching the science of reading. Chancellor does get to make some decisions, we said OK as long as training.

Marnie Geltman: But why did we agree to this so quickly? At one DA you said not changing curriculum, next one we were changing.

Mulgrew: What I said is I don’t want curriculum put in place unless training there in both DOE and UFT. DOE has met all of that criteria. We have trained people at our teacher center. Pacing calendars at school. Understand some principals don’t like it, but their bosses are saying they met criteria of union.

New Motions:

Rich Mantell: This month. Resolution to support tan end to the cycle of violence in the middle east.

  • Resolved that the UFT condemns the attack;
  • Resolved, that we encourage open dialogue and respect for differing perspectives while emphasizing the importance of peaceful negotiations, mutual understanding and the protection of human rights for all parties involved; and be it further:
  • Resolved that the UFT stands in support of all those working toward peace in the region, because everyone deserves to live in safety and with dignity and security; and be it further
  • Resolved that the UFT works with those willing to make any and all efforts to end the cycle of violence and to bring peace to the region for Palestinians and Israelis.

Person asks if they can move this up to number one before the vote.

83% Yes.

Nicole Keaster: Can we move to number one on the agenda?

It is moved to number 1.

Resolution in support of affirmative action and equal opportunity in responses to the June 2023 Supreme Court Ban on the use of Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Affirmative action established in 1961, updated in 1971 on gender, intended to admit marginalized groups. 78 allowed race as factors but no quotas. In 2023, ruled unconstitutional. UFT should affirm use of affirmative action.

76% goes on this month’s agenda.

Resolutions

Cycle of Violence in the Middle East

Patricia M (retired): As teachers always trying to show difference between right and wrong. We think of the kids in Israel watching all this violence, I don’t know how we stand up to make this a teachable moment – never violence as answer. Stand behind children and families.

Jeff A. Amendment to remove second and 8th paragaraph, because starts with blame, not reconciliation. (mentioned Hamas).

Israel Soto: Which side are we condemning Hamas or Israel? Which one?

Mantell: Hamas.

Mantell: We’re talking a particular moment in time and what took place Saturday. It was an attack by a terrorist organization. That’s what we’re speaking about. That’s the point that brought us here today. To take out those paragraphs, this resolution becomes meaningless. I know there’s a history here – not naïve. Talking about Saturday and Saturday alone.

Daniel Alicea: Point of order. Can we find out who the authors are, so we can find out if as many people were included as possible?

Mulgrew: Maker is Mantell, which is why.

Alicea: Motion to table the resolution. *boos in crowd*

Mulgrew: You can’t make a motion.

Alicea: Asking us to recognize.

Mulgrew: Current motion is motion to amend, you made a point of order.

Kathleen Morgo: Support the amendment. With political history of Palestine and Israel I don’t think we can support just one organization.  Woman in support of resolution when she said we support peace, no violence.

Mike Sill: Rise to speak against the amendment. Most intractable issue of human rights on planet earth. Nothing we can say in this particular moment to talk about that larger problem. What we were talking about as Rich pointed out is what happened on Saturday. We aren’t supporting supporting one side or another, talking about that event. It’s the act of violence that this resolution is meant to speak against.

Amender: asks if he can speak.

Mulgrew says no.

Ryan Bruckenthal: favor of the amendment. Been a hard week, having tough conversations at this school. Amendment that places in context of the occupation is important. By removing Hamas, recognizes what’s going on there, bombing of Gaza. So much death on both sides.

Sarah Evans: In shock listening this. Terrorist attack. This happened in our country. Don’t know why anyone would support Hamas. Israel is defending itself; children were massacred. Hearts ripped out of their bodies while alive. How can we condone that behavior. So I’m against this amendment. My grandfather marched and struck. Shanker would be shocked by this.

Julia Cochan: Speak against amendment. Distressed to hear people say that comparing to Israel to Hamas…Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization. Our president of the US has spoken about what happened on Saturday. Like Rich, like Mike said, we aren’t here to discuss the politics of the middle east. To say that anything done by Israel to cause Hamas to act in this way is a travesty – like saying US had something to do with 9/11. 45,000 people died, not just a building coming down. Babies getting decapitated, women stripped, murdered. If you’re ok to see your wife and mother going through this, please come speak to this? Don’t think anyone here has stood up here and debated 9/11. Shame that we’re doing that here. Not about being Jewish or Israeli, if you could look at those images and not be horrified, then I think we have to question our own humanity. Just as a note, Israel has always been an incredible effort, sacrificing soldiers to protect civilian lives.

Audible verbal fighting from across the room.

Mulgrew: Heated topic, but people can react to what people say, but has to be with civil discourse – otherwise get nothing done.

Joe B: I would like to call the question on all matters before the house.

Amendment fails, though with many votes yes on the phone, only 6 no in the room. 439-332 total (I think).

Original resolution:

Yes – 376, no 201. Passes. In room: 177-46.  

Mulgrew: Not easy stuff.

DA Votes yes to Send out Contract without a Copy: UFT Delegate Assembly – 6-13-2023

Published June 13, 2023 Contract , UFT 7 Comments
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Summary/ Analysis: Today, UFT leadership put delegates in a position where they had ‘no choice’ but to vote without seeing a tentative agreement. Otherwise, Mulgrew said, we wouldn’t be able to vote on a contract before September. The PowerPoint had a lot of things that could be good, but we’ve seen PowerPoints miss the fine print before. The DA voted to accept sending out the contract to members for ratification, and I understand why. But, make no mistake: this has put us in a dangerous moment. In 2018, healthcare givebacks were signed into the appendix of a contract (in the form of economic concessions) because of missed ‘fine print.’ It became harder to get a +30 for newer teachers, because fine print was not understood. The list goes on. What won’t we know before we vote this time? And when will the MOA even be on the website? I ended up being the only person allowed to speak against, though many other hands were up, and that paragraph is towards the bottom.

Mulgrew: Welcome to the final DA. You all do so much work. Appreciate the patience with constant changes. We understood going into this that we wanted to get a contract done by the end of the school year, to use the ability to do something significant – remote learning – but only way to do that was to get it done before September. Today is the last day that this decision could be made. If you don’t understand, we ratify our contracts in the schools. Majority of the membership, some exceptions in functionals who have it sent to their houses, who vote in schools. This is what the City was told. Timeline is real – not a tactic/pressure issue. If we wanna ratify, we have to ratify now. If we want the ballots back, they have to go to AAA – not the union. We were working on that  – at 4:00 or 5:00 I didn’t think we’d be having this conversation. I thought we’d be preparing for actions in September and preparing this summer. Twists and turns in negotiations. Didn’t expect phone call at 10:45 PM last night. We worked through the night and the next morning – finished the last piece at 11:00 AM this morning. That last thing that Chancellors Day is permanently remote. So now, exec board and contract committee have voted to send this out to the general membership. What we’re going to do today.

The MOA is done but it hasn’t been signed by the City or us. But as soon as it’s done, it will be made available to the membership. If you don’t believe me – you think I’m a liar, I don’t know what to tell you. We have more agreements than we have ever had in a contract. There’s stuff in here for every title. Almost all our titles have time to do virtual work. There are recognitions that you should have control of what you do with your time. A reconfiguration of the 155 minutes. I received some very interesting questions – if we do not have a work day agreement, there is an agreement that says every non-multi-session school goes to 37.5 minutes of small group instruction after school. That was something we did years – the reason the DOE came to us to come to a workday agreement, let’s just say – schools end up with 12 bus runs instead of 6. Do you understand what that causes for the school system? More than a billion a year. Technically the City can send out the calendar without us, but we tie this to the calendar. So when the DOE sent out the calendar on that Friday afternoon, we made the correct decision to inform you all that we’re going back to 37.5. And I informed the Mayor in person that night. It took them a little while – they thought it sounded nice, until they called the bus people. At the same time, we have a pattern that we’re not crazy about, so how do you get creative? Our members rightfully said to us that they wanted to stop being disrespected. And time. That’s it. So today, I want to lay this out.

LeRoy Barr brings out resolution for tonight to change the DA – 3 resolutions: resolution to send ratification vote to members, second for a summer contingency plan for endorsing candidates, and to extend the virtual DA resolution – the total agenda for today.

Rashad brown rises in support. Members wanna go away knowing things are OK.

Passes.

Mulgrew: look at the clock, and we might have to extend if that’s OK with you, our fault – we started late.

This here is the powerpoint – not going to get through all of it, half a phone book. Wanna be clear, there is not a single concession in it. 80% was done in committee. These are things, that individual titles, it is very important to them. This is really important work. Our goal was to get every title in front of the City. There was training/demands. That led to massive changes in our contract – all positive towards what we believe we need. Mostly about stop the disrespect. Also about doing some work virtually. If you’re a classroom teacher, it’s harder to do if you’re in person. It was very clear when I was in the committee, it was clear. Every single one of you got changes in your time.

As soon as it’s signed, it will be online and you can read the entire thing. I’m sure you will be fascinated by everything we were able to get for all the titles. Money is 3, 3, 3, 3.25, and 3.25 ( per year), so that’s above the other union. The other piece is the retention bonus piece. Ranges from 400 to 1,035 depending on the year. You will receive that as long as you work for DOE – FOREVER. It does not go away. This check will be the same for every title.

Alicea: Pensionable?

Mulgrew: No. It will not be pensionable. If we put pension costs in that, we don’t get the thousand dollars. The rest goes right where it needs to go. But this one was specific. If put in pension, that thousand dollar check would go down to 600.

With the increases, what we go to now is the teacher salary schedule. All of the teachers will now reach 100,000 by 8B after five years. And everyone who worked this year will get a retro. *Shows slide with some specifics for financials.

New pilot workday: 60 min PD on Mondays; 40 mins for OPW; 55 for PE. PE can be done from wherever you want. Right now, if you do a log, that’s fine. Parent engagement will also be added to C6 menu. Parent engagement time can be done when you want.

Other-school-based titles make own schedules, get time to complete administrative tasks, remote.

*Mulgrew realizes powerpoint hasn’t been sent out to people at home, so starts reading out loud on section about non-school-based titles who can now work up to 2 days remotely in some circumstances.

DOE wanted no-pre approved SBOs. Don’t know what that was about. We were like no, we’re not doing this. 60 means we have multiple options now, e.g. to put PD in the morning. For instance, if you start at 9:00, may want to do PD in morning. Also some multi-session versions pre approved for faculty conferences and grade/department meetings.

Parent Teacher Conferences – DOE wanted to leave it to principals for whether to be in person or remote. But we know it’s successful. We see 3x as many parents as we used to. So we’ve locked that down. Parent teacher conferences can take place in school if parent requests at mutual time.

Expanded professional activity menu.

Bereavement changes – can use at any point within 3 months if funeral scheduled later.

Parental Leave – if both parents are UFT members and you’re having a child, you both now get paid family leave.

DOE has agreed that we should have access to clean drinking water and air.

A lot of stuff in contract is when people are in difficult situations – e.g. Injury in the Line of Duty. Medical arbitration.

UFT center to help make CTLE-aligned options, which can be used in PD time during the workday at the school’s per session. We have to build this—most will be based off of new literacy programs—so that up two PD credits can confer CTLE credit.

DOE agrees we need a committee on over-assessment of children.

Now have to give a reason why probation extended. Can no longer give no clue to why. Opens up some of our legal options.

Biggest skillset missing is programming – some work on that.

H-Bank – we now have read only access, so we can help solve things for them.

All the paperwork standards have more rigor than we had before.

Creation of an electronic per session time form.

Due Process and investigations. Things that we asked for – if you have any doubts about my integrity, please.

I give this chancellor credit. There will be two virtual systems. Citywide system – classes will be jointly created. Can enter, after the school day, if get demand during we’ll do it though wouldn’t work. Could be in morning, evening, Saturday, Sunday. No teacher can be forced to do this work. A lot of good stuff here. We see this as a catch up possibility for students who might not graduate. Then there are other students who want to graduate early, so what’s the problem, let them graduate early. Equity portion – a lot of classes that we don’t have teachers doing. Problem is teacher often doesn’t have full schedule this way. All voluntary, posted. We’ll have full time teachers, hybrid teachers working 3, maybe you want to work 1-7. This all has to be worked out, but we’re trying to be as creative as possible. Starts with 25% of high schools next year, then phasing in other schools. We know with elementary it’s more of a challenge because you usually need an adult on the other side. All our work is protected, everything is there. This is very, very interesting. Always love doing something creative in a contract. If we get this right – there’s no major school district in the country doing this. If you’re district 79, you might have 18 sites. So how do you do math in 18 sites?

Student pathways – students do better when tying to their future.

PSAL: Increased number of sessions.

SPED: There will be specific meetings now where you must discuss the school’s compliance. Training session so that principals and teachers do that training together. SEISIS, we’ve been told 2 years from now there will be a new one, they will continue to work with us on this.

SPED professional activities: must prioritize student assessments and co-planning time.

Elementary Schools: Elementary teachers pee too! Same language for middle/high school now, now have same language on 3 in a row. Also, elementary day will end after kids are on the bus. We’re gonna have fun enforcing this one – it will blow minds.

We still have 20 pages to go through, but these are very specific things to titles themselves. There are no givebacks here.

I’ll say this to you today. We’ve had our disagreements with the mayor. But when he realized what we were trying to do, but this morning he was truly happy with the things we got to announce today. He’s happy about every one of our members getting a thousand dollar check. And the chancellor’s vision. So, going to do a question period, then we will do a vote.

Question Period:

George Geiss: Proud member of this negotiating committee. My first question a joke – how do I run to be a CL in a virtual school. For SBO configuration, is it still a 6:20 option?

Carl Cambria: Yes, there are some options that talk about other options, but that’s what you’d be voting for.

George Geiss: Joined negotiating committee – it didn’t make this. But you better bet, I’m voting yes, because no matter what you think – this is a very powerful contract, no matter what caucus you’re in.

Mulgrew: Just reminding everyone it’s the question period.

Zeke Plotkin: just wondering about logistics of SBOs.

Mulgrew: I shut down all SBOs and PROSE votes. If we were going to war, we weren’t going light. A lot of my members were like huh? What we’ll do is this: we will send out the ratification right away, printing right now. Then I will do an online to the chapter leaders. You can proceed with your PROSE and SBO votes, but it’s contingent on ratification of the contract. Don’t want to hold them and make you do in September.

Name missed: Wondering about virtual schooling, how will it be assigned?

Mulgrew: All of it will be done through posting. Schools themselves will have to submit a plan on what they want to do. No crazy stuff happening this year with virtual. We have to guard this program. Virtual learning was done during the pandemic. There was good and bad VL. Public will probably give us a shot on the good learning. We have to guard the integrity of the virtual learning program.

Name Missed: What if a teacher applies for a virtual learning program and it doesn’t work out because it doesn’t work? Do they still have old job?

Mulgrew: Still working that out…at least a year. But have to work out. Think it will be extremely popular.

Steve S (Lehman): Talking to some of my members, and after negotiating committee, was talking to some folks who were skeptical of presentation. We will we get to see MOA? Including appendixes? When?

Mulgrew: Yes…pauses on appendixes….yes….Then on time, says we are still working on some stuff that’s contingent. Right now, I’ve been told that the MOA is done. IT has been sent to the office of labor relations. They will read it, have 3 people reading simultaneously. If choose to, they will sign it, then they’ll send it back to us, and up on the web it goes. Assume that would be done in next 24 hours, but is still OLR.

Beth P: Question is about the calendar and on remote snow days.

Mulgrew: Officially in this contract, will not go into effect unless have calendar agreement. Have informed City about large issue with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim friends—so I think I’m telling you where we are going on this. In emergency shut down, we go to remote. Had 2 last week – not just snow days. This year, wasn’t a lot, but we didn’t expect to see so many days for next year. And remember, we may also have another day – Diwali – we support it.

Question missed.

Kate Konnors: You said MOA would be up in 24 hours?

Mulgrew: hold up – we’d like to have it up – if OLR does, then it will be up. Just got a nod from attorney dealing with them.

Kate Connors: You’re asking us to vote on it before we read it?

Heckling of Kate from UFT staffers.

Mulgrew: We vote to send to members. Last day we can do this. If people don’t want to have the choice because they don’t have an MOA, then vote no. But I’m so proud of this contract.

Kate: Have concerns from last contract – going to Medicare Advantage. Appendix B, do some research.

Mulgrew: will say what I said to someone else, it was all in there, know people like to misrepresent, but everything in MOA. If you feel uncomfortable, just tell them you voted no on their ability to vote on the MOA.

Vote to extend DA another 15 minutes.

Passes with 81%.

Alicea tries to amend but denied.

Carl Cambria (UFT Staffer): Know a lot of you were on the 500 member committee. Has members of that committee stand up – most stand. About a year ago, we started this – for a fair contract now. We have that fair contract, that fair tentative agreement right now. It’s beyond. Each and every committee. One missing piece to this – the word on the button bottom – NOW. We need to do this now. We owe it to our members to get them a fair contract now.

Rashad Brown (UFT Staffer): Michael, I don’t know how the UFT leadership pulls it off again. Thanks many. We see benefits. Number one thing is money? 1k  a year? Never heard of that.

Point of information: what’s the amendment?

Mulgrew: Can’t just yell out motion to amend. Anyone want to speak against?

Danny Rodriguez: Bronx DR (UFT staffer). Don’t normally speak, but feel compelled to say this – we are here because of the negotiating committee and all the actions we have done. We’ve had contract action teams working with our members. Important to share our work. Proud we were part of that. Show our members. Patient.Hope all yes.

Daniel Alicea: first point of order, typically motions we don’t motivate unless sending to next assembly. Clarify rules? We had a motion here, folks started speaking towards it. If there is a motion, there should be for and against. I would like motion to amend.

Mulgrew: there is nothing that says not necessarily for or against. Something we’ve adopted.

Barr: In terms of question about an amendment – that would be out of order, you’re giving leeway to take someone to speak against. We don’t have to acknowledge.

Nick Bacon: Sorry to even be in a position where I have to speak against this, but I’m on the negotiating committee, the executive board, and the DA and have not seen this MOA. We don’t even know when it will be on the website for our members to see. You don’t buy a house based on a PowerPoint the realtor showed you, or a used car based on the PowerPoint your used car salesman showed you. You look at the contract. There were issues with the last PowerPoint – not because anyone was trying to lie, but because it’s hard to see fine print in a PowerPoint. We need to see the fine print before we tell our members this is a deal worth voting yes on. *Around now, being heckled by UFT staffers* It’s OK, I’ve been being heckled all day, mostly by UFT staffers. We’ve also mostly heard from UFT staffers about why we should vote for this contract. They haven’t read the MOA either, and they also don’t have to live with the consequences. Working teachers – and other titles – will have to live with the consequences. We need to know what’s in this contract before we vote on it.

Name missed: will MOA be on the website before vote?

Aqeel Williams (UFT Staffer): Dues paying member (and staffer) – glad to see the stuff on elementary. Trust my leadership. Also as a member of this negotiating committee, we should be proud that we’re doing – and I trust my leadership that I don’t have to see the whole MOA right in front of me.

P. Johnson: Membership is highest governing body. Members will have a chance to vote later. Call to question.

Mulgrew: says can’t motivate and can’t call question.

Geoff Sorkin (UFT Staffer): Proud executive board member and director of the welfare fund and proud to call the question.

Unity members celebrate no debate, clapping.

Yeses: 1,287; nos 285 – online. (Miss room count). Mulgrew: Passes overwhelmingly.

Motion to extend. Yes, press 1;

Hybrid DA:

Name Missed: For this motion. If have to commute, can miss half the DA – worry about parking etc.

Name Missed: as someone coming from Staten Island, thank g-d. First time I could do DAs without having to sacrifice time with my children. Remember us poor forgotten Staten Islanders! Takes forever to get here.

Name missed: speaks for, great way to be a mother and part of this union.

J. Morris: I’m for – misdial.

M. Joyce: Call the question.

Passes.

Summer endorsement process also passes.

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